Monday, September 22, 2008

Riddle Fence: Journal of Arts & Culture Returns for Second Issue

Riddle Fence, a St. John's-based journal of arts & culture, is launching its second issue at 3:30 PM on October 6th at a private ceremony at Government House. A public launch party will follow at 8 PM at The Ship Pub.

Formerly a publication of the Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador, Riddle Fence is now published by Riddle Fence Inc. and managed by a nine member board of directors; editorial content is selected by a six member editorial board.

"We're thrilled to be launching the second issue," says managing editor Mark Callanan. "When the first Riddle Fence came out, it wasn't clear that there would be another, but we received such an enthusiastic response, and such support from the community, that we were determined to make it work. The launch of our second issue has great symbolic significance: We're back and we're going to continue producing this journal for a long time."

The deadline for submissions to issue number three is October 10, 2008. Riddle Fence accepts "high quality fiction, non-fiction, poetry, artwork, and anything else that fits on paper and punches above its own artistic weight."

The title is a term recorded in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English. You may know it as wriggle or riddling or wriggling fence; these are all permutations of the same basic element. The phrase has a great music to it—a vibrancy, an impish energy. What's more, the riddle is one of the oldest forms of literature; it is steeped in a history that reaches back even further than the printed medium, into the oral tradition. But mostly, the title owes its genesis to the fact that I've been thinking about fences and boundaries a lot lately in relation to this province. Fences keep things out or keep things in. They bisect land and define territory. I like to think of Newfoundland and Labrador as being constantly stuck between two things, two states—occupying a liminal space. It is partway between the Old World and the New, partway between being a country and a province; it is torn between its storied past (which is both burden and blessing) and the allure of the future; we love the word Newfie/we hate the word Newfie. The people here are border dwellers—lodged between the earth and the sea.